PUNISHER ANNUAL #1

"EVOLUTIONARY JIHAD"
Script: Mike Baron | Pencils: Mark Texeira | Inks: Scott Williams
Letters: Jim Novak | Colors: Janet Jackson | Editor: Carl Potts
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: The Punisher has arrived in Bogota, Colombia, to take out a drug lord called El Caiman. But El Caiman's town is assaulted by "Eliminators" and Punisher saves the life of El Caiman's daughter, Lucinda, in the crossfire. She takes the Punisher back to her father's estate, where he meets El Caiman and agrees to a truce until the Eliminators are defeated. The estate comes under attack and El Caiman, Punisher, and Lucinda retreat to the drug lord's farm for their last stand. There, with El Caiman's full armory at his disposal, the Punisher defeats the Eliminators.

Their mutual foes gone, El Caiman turns on the Punisher and attempts to kill him, but Punisher turns the tables and blasts El Caiman's "fish tank", releasing his menagerie of deadly sea creatures, which kill the crime boss while Punisher spirits Lucinda to safety. As Lucinda mourns her father, Punisher leads her away from the farm.

Continuity Notes: None.

Circa 1988: El Caiman briefly questions whether the Punisher was sent by President Reagan, and a couple pages later the Punisher's internal monologue mentions Henry Kissinger.

Later, we see that El Caiman has stacks and stacks of VCRs in his hidden lair, and he's in possession of an anti-aircraft missile he got from the Iranians, who bought it from the Afghanis.

DANGER GIRL

"PRELUDE TO DANGER!" | "DANGEROUSLY YOURS" | "DANGEROUS LIAISONS"
"DANGEROUS CURVES" | "MAXIMUM DANGER" | "DANGEROUS WHEN WET"
"DANGEROUS DESTINIES" | "INTO THE DANGER ZONE"
Drawings & Story: J. Scott Campbell | Story & Script: Andy Hartnell
Inks: Alex Garner, Richard Friend, Sandra Hope, Scott Williams, Tom McWeeney, Tim Townsend, Art Thibert | Colors: Guy Major, Justin Ponsor, Ben Dimagmaliw, Joe Chiodo, Martin Jimenez, David Baron
Lettering: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Dave Lanphear and Wes Abbott
Editor: Scott Dunbier | Danger Girl Created By J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell

The DANGER GIRL PREVIEW, an eight-page teaser for the regular series, was released with a cover date of December, 1997. It was my first year of college. The series' final issue, #7, was dated February, 2001. My senior year. I distinctly remember being flabbergasted whenever a new issue showed up in my pull box at the local comic book shop back then. DANGER GIRL was my first real foray into something outside the realms of Marvel and DC, as I had passed on the Image Exodus of the early nineties. And it's not an exaggeration to declare that DANGER GIRL soured me on venturing beyond that safe zone provided by the Big Two. I found the series entertaining and the artwork fantastic, but the delays made it impossible for me to remember what happened between issues. And I value entertainment produced on a timely schedule more than work delayed for any reason, be it laziness or the desire for perfection.

So my DANGER GIRL comics sat, stored away and unread, for years. I eventually dug them out one day and read them in one sitting, to find that the story is surprisingly coherent. Campbell and Hartnell must have had their arc worked out from the start, because when read in succession, without months-long delays between issues, everything holds together.

But the thing that really surprised me upon re-reading is that the story isn't just coherent -- it's also pretty good!